It's been a long while since an update and in-between there have been many dinner guests who have experienced my attempts at authentic Italian, Thai, Mediterannean, Chinese, Greek, French and, the topic for this entry, Mexican, cooking. The subject of this photo, the lime vanillla coconut flan was a big hit. Yay! I kind of mixed the flavors, so there is no recipe for such a concoction (I think) but the taste is amazing. I love the lime mixed in there--so much so that I just made lime, white chocolate and coconut cookies.Anyway, back to the meal. Decided to make red chili beef tamales, but could not find the dried corn husks. Searched everywhere. . . In the meantime I braised the beef (top cut) and then cooked in my own enchilada sauce. Decided to find some fresh husks, soak them and then weave strips together. This was mentioned on some Southern Mexican Tamale websites. Are you kidding?? After a couple of weaving disasters, I went to parchment and foil and steamed the hell out of them. Masa Harina was another hard-to-find item. Not sure why, since there is a sizeable Mexican population around here. Then again, maybe they ate it up.
The tamales worked out great, without the fresh or dried husks--although the husks would have made for better texture, I'm thinking. Made Cuban beans--done with smoked pork (neck) and TONs of onions and garlic, cumin, the usual assortment of herbs and spices. I used a recipe from food network for a cilantro lime sour cream. That was AWESome. Especially since I have a boatload of cilantro in my garden.
Add some spicy chicken empanadas with a homemade herb crust to the mix, and, of course, homemade horchata, and it was quite a meal. The horchata was the easiest to make: soak the rice and cinnamon stick in water for about a half hour, puree (take the stick out you fool!), and then add a small amount of condensed milk, lots of water, some sugar, shake and presto.
I like the staging for the flan. Unique anyway. I don't see this on other blogs. . . .
